pages

Friday, March 9, 2018

The Ninth Doctor

So after watching all of Classic Doctor Who over the past
two and a half years (and writing about it for two years) I’m finally at Modern
Doctor Who! So without further ado, here’s my first Doctor: Christopher
Eccleston.

Series 1

The show regenerated

Top Story: Bad
Wolf/The Parting of the Ways

It was really a hard choice between the finale and “The
Empty Child”/“The Doctor Dances” for top choice. In fact in my first draft of
this post, I picked it. But I wanted to choice the two-part finale, because of its
firsts. This was the first time since the Key to
Time series that Doctor Who had an overall story for the season, instead of
just individual adventures. Through the season “Bad Wolf” popped up occasionally
and then got resolved in the finale. This trend has continued through Modern
Doctor Who, ever since. It was also the first modern regeneration, so we gotta
enjoy the introduction of David Tennant.

Flop Story: Boom Town

It was this or “The Long Game”. However, this story was just
unnecessary. I have no issue with the Slitheen. Considering that Doctor Who was
bound to have poor special effects on its first season back, of course the aliens
were going to be weird. But their original story and their reprisal in “The
Sarah Jane Adventures” were good. This was just an unnecessary revival of a
supposedly dead character, just to have a story.

"Run!"

Honorable Mention: Rose

This is how new Doctor stories need to be. What the Eighth
Doctor movie did wrong was assuming that viewers knew the Doctor, knew
regeneration, and knew the TARDIS. In this story, we learn about the Doctor and
the TARDIS as Rose does, making it easier for new viewers. This was repeated to
some extent with Martha and Bill, making easy points for new viewers to come in
without committing to 20+ years of Doctor Who before getting caught up. Granted
the Autons were odd, but it was a nice throwback to the old Third Doctor villain.
Since the show is 50+ years old now, it needs stories like this to bring in new
blood.

COMPANIONS:

RoseRose - (10th
Doctor)

AdamDalek - The
Long Game

JackThe Empty
Child - The Parting of the Ways

Favorite Companion:
It seems like Rose gets a lot of flack from the fanbase, but I like her.
Granted, she and the Ninth Doctor were my first pair I ever saw together consistently
(I started with “Blink” and then went back) but this pair worked together. Rose
had the character development that I’d want for all companions. She went from working
in retail to saving the universe and even matching wits with the Doctor a few
times. To be fair, I would have preferred she kept her ending at the end of
Series 2 with the Tenth Doctor, but I enjoyed seeing her return in Series 4, so
I can’t complain.

Least Favorite
Companion: Adam. Just Adam. I don’t know anyone in the fanbase who likes
Adam. He hitched a ride in 2012, went to the future, and then got thrown out back
at home. We all like to forget about Adam, but he was an unfortunate side
effect of time travel I suppose. Above all else, he sucked because he was the
one companion to use traveling in the TARDIS for personal gain (unless you
count Turlough working for the Black Guardian). He did get some “redemption” in
the 50th Anniversary comic series called “Prisoners of Time”, but regardless
he’s still down low on my list of companions. ALL companion (even including Adric).

What was your favorite Ninth Doctor story? You did watch the
Ninth Doctor right? We don’t skip Nine here. So go watch Nine. Now. Just go.

I was once told that Colin Baker wanted the Sixth Doctor to have this outfit. Tough luck.